_It is hard to place those souls in Hell._] _Lactantius_ is alike charitably disposed towards those. _Non sum equidem tam iniquus ut eos putem divinare debuisse, ut veritatem per seipsos invenirent (quod fieri ego non posse confiteor) sed hoc ab eis exigo, quod ratione ipse præstare potuerunt._ Lactant. _de orig. error._ c. 3. which is the very same with Sir _K. Digbie's_ expression in his Observations on this place. I make no doubt at all (saith he) but if any follow'd in the whole tenour of their lives, the dictamens of right reason, but that their journey was secure to Heaven. _Sect. 55. Pag. 77._ Aristotle _transgress'd the rule of his own Ethicks._] And so they did all, as _Lactantius_ hath observed at large. _Aristot._ is said to have been guilty of great vanity in his Clothes, of Incontinency, of Unfaithfulness to his Master _Alexander_, etc. But 'tis no wonder in him, if our great _Seneca_ be also guilty, whom truely notwithstanding St. _Jerome_ would have him inserted in the Catalogue of Saints, yet I think he as little deserv'd it, as many of the Heathens who did not say so well as he did, for I do not think any of them liv'd worse: to trace him a little. In the time of the Emperour _Claudius_ we find he was banish'd for suspition of incontinency with _Julia_ the daughter of _Germanicus_. If it be said that this proceeded meerly from the spight of _Messalina_, (and that _Lipsius_ did not complement with him in that kind _Apostrophe, Non expetit in te hæc culpa, O Romani nominis et Sapientiæ magne. Sol. Not. in Tacit._) why then did she not cause him to be put to death, as well as she did the other, who was her Husbands Niece? This for certain, whatever his life were, he had _paginam lascivam_, as may appear by what he hath written, _de Speculorum usu, l. 1. Nat. Qu. cap. 16_. Which (admitting it may in a Poet, yet) how it should be excus'd in a Philosopher I know not. To look upon him in his exile, we find that then he wrote his Epistle _De Consolat._ to _Polybius_, _Claudius_ his creature (as honest a man as _Pallas_ or _Narcissus_) and therein he extols him and the Emperour to the Skies; in which he did grosly prevaricate, and lost much of his reputation, by seeking a discharge of his exile by so sordid a means. Upon _Claudius_ his marriage with _Agrippina_, he was recall'd from Banishment by her means, and made _Prætor_, then he forgets the Emperour, having no need of him, labours all he can to depress him and the hopeful _Brittanicus_, and procured his Pupil _Nero_ to be adopted and design'd Successor, and the Emperours own Son to be disinherited; and against the Emperour whom he so much praised when he had need of him, after his death he writes a scurrilous Libel. In _Nero's_ Court, how ungratefully doth he behave himself towards _Agrippina_! who although she were a wicked woman, yet she deserv'd well of him, and of her Son too, who yet never was at rest till he had taken away her life, and upon suspition cast in against her